I firmly believe that we should simplify life as much as possible, because that is probably the way to avoid the opposite: making life complicated for ourselves. And this is where what I call the hard truths of life come in.
Questions without answers, a distorted idea of happiness and our insistence on staying where we don’t want to be are some of the things I started writing down in a notebook many years ago, not because they sounded nice, but to make sure I would live by them.
These are some of life’s hard truths
1. Some questions have no answers
Why did this or that go wrong? Why did this person leave me? Why did my marriage fail even though I gave it my best?
You’re going to fail lots of times in different areas of your life: relationships, work, business. In some cases, you shouldn’t ask yourself certain questions, because there are no answers. You simply have to let the problem go and keep moving forward.
The secret of success lies in two contradictory things. One is to persist and not give up. The other is to know when to withdraw, so you save your strength to fight other wars.
Sometimes you’ll have to let people go, not because they don’t matter to you, but because you don’t matter to them. This may sound harsh, but it’s necessary. Letting go isn’t about being able to forget the past. It’s about having the wisdom to take the lessons from the past and not make the same mistakes.
Remember that you won’t be able to win every battle, so you’ll have to choose very carefully the ones you’re willing to fight to the end. In the end, you don’t have to attend every conflict you’re invited to, either.
2. Some people and situations are harmful, and you have to find the strength to walk away
Whether we’re talking about people or situations, never stay a minute longer than necessary where you don’t want to be. Life is for living, not for suffering. Don’t freeze up out of fear of making changes.
If what was once a dream ended up turning into a nightmare, find another dream. At times you’ll think it’s too late to walk away from a person, too late to change a situation, but you’re only listening to the voice of fear. The change probably won’t be easy, and you’ll have hard moments, but I guarantee you one thing: if you don’t make that decision today, in 5 or 10 years you’ll regret not having made it today.
When you don’t like a situation and changing it isn’t up to you, the only thing you can do is leave that road and start a new road of change and prosperity. Once you find the courage to close the door on a past you don’t like, never open that door again. And never let toxic people, or those who add nothing to your life, hold you back.
See also: Stuck and not sure what to do next? This story is for you
3. Comfort in the short term will rob you of happiness in the long term
You can be comfortable or you can be brave, but you’ll rarely be both. If you only make safe, easy decisions because you’re afraid of what might happen, nothing good will ever happen in your life. Don’t let fear drive your life or complacency decide your destiny.
4. Simple things work better
For some reason we like to complicate things when we could do them more simply.
Do you miss someone? Call them.
Does that person mind you calling? Then don’t. Turn the page and let them go.
Do you like someone? Tell them, straight and clear. One of two things can happen:
That person feels the same way, and a wonderful love story begins.
That person turns you down, so you stop wasting time and can find someone else with whom that wonderful love story will begin. The truth is that most people put off speaking plainly because they’re afraid of rejection, which often creates an insecurity that leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy: rejection.
Do you want to do something? Do it. Now. Not tomorrow. Take the first step today.
5. There is no better teacher than pain
The question isn’t what you want to achieve in life, but how much pain you’re willing to endure to achieve it. Without effort and sacrifice, you’ll rarely achieve anything worthwhile.
Whether you want to lose weight or take on any kind of learning, there will end up being a huge difference between the people who accepted short-term sacrifice and suffering and those who preferred not to make that sacrifice or feel that pain.
The same goes for traumatic experiences in the past. For some, that pain was paralysing, while for others it was a practical lesson in resilience that has made them stronger and wiser today.
Pain is the best teacher, but few people want to attend its classes.
6. You can’t control a great many things, but you can control how you respond to them
In life, most things are beyond our control. We can’t control certain illnesses, and we can’t force some people to stay by our side for the whole journey. We will suffer losses and failures. And we won’t always be able to control the outcome, but we can control the attitude with which we face the situations that come our way.
It’s not always in your hands to avoid a situation that causes you pain, but it is in your hands to choose the attitude with which you’ll face it.
7. We spend more time on the things we can’t control than working on the things we can
You can’t control the result of a football match or the result of an election. Nor can you control a country’s economy or end a global economic crisis, but you can focus on your personal development, on building new skills and on getting ahead to change your situation. You can’t control what others think of you, which is why, as someone once said, what other people think of you is none of your business.
8. Not everyone likes you, and luckily so
Not everyone is going to like you. Many people will appreciate and admire you for being who you are, and others will hate, criticise and envy you for that very same reason. There is no more effective way to make enemies than to have success or luck in life. That’s why you should focus on staying on good terms with yourself, because in this life, in the end, you only compete with yourself. Living free from other people’s approval means gaining peace of mind and happiness.
9. We can give our best, try as hard as we can, and still fail. And it’s not your fault
Sometimes you’ll make an effort, give your best and do right by other people, and the outcome can still end up being negative: people let us down or we fail. If this happens, let it go, take whatever lessons you can learn from the experience, keep moving forward and don’t look back.
10. Life isn’t always happiness
Today there is great pressure on us to pursue happiness, which distorts the idea of what happiness really is. We should be grateful for the simple fact of being alive, because the truth is that life is beautiful and full of possibilities. But life also turns towards hard and painful moments.
There is as much value in the good as in the bad. Your happiness shouldn’t depend on external events, so that you’re happy in the good times and miserable in the bad times. Happiness is an internal emotional state, a choice we make to accept life in all its complexity, with its most beautiful moments and its most painful ones. Only then will you accept life as it is.
11. Most of what worries you today has absolutely nothing to do with the present
Focusing on what could have been is a needless waste of energy. We can’t change what happened in the past. Focusing on the uncertainties of what the future holds causes unnecessary stress and anxiety. Past and future are two times in which we can’t work, and any worry we have will only drain our energy and rob us of the best gift we have, which is our present and everything we can do today to have a better future.
12. The life you have today is the one you’ve chosen to have
We tend to make excuses and look for someone to blame, often imaginary, to explain why we’re living a life we don’t want. But we are the captains of our own ship. We can’t choose where we come from, but we can choose where we want to go.
Up to today, you’ve made a series of choices and decisions and acquired habits that have led to a certain result. If you keep acting the same way, keep making the same decisions and keep the same habits and routines, you’ll get the same result again and again.
Nothing will change unless you make the change happen. Before you change your life, you have to change yourself. You need to adopt different habits and make choices different from the ones you’ve made so far. If you don’t change yourself, you’ll attract the same result.
See also: 9 typical behaviours of people who fail
13. Old wounds will hold you back if you don’t know how to deal with them
You shouldn’t use the wounds of the past as a place to live, but as a catapult to launch yourself forward. It’s not about forgetting the past or trying to remove the scars. It’s about being able to look at the scar and having the strength, integrity and wisdom not to be paralysed by the memory of the wound.
Remember that in identical situations, some people have sunk while others have come out stronger. The only difference between them is the attitude and courage with which they faced their traumas and fears. The past should stay where it belongs: in the past.
14. You’re born again every day
Every day is a new opportunity to do things completely differently from the way you were doing them yesterday. You can change your life at any moment, simply by getting up one morning, raising your standards and telling yourself what you’re no longer willing to tolerate. Whether it’s your work situation or your love life, every day you have the chance to start from scratch.
15. Most people don’t need more to be happy, they need less
We tend to focus on the wrong things. If things or people aren’t adding to your life, they’re subtracting from it. Life becomes much simpler when we get rid of physical and emotional clutter. Pay attention to the things and people that add to your life, and don’t spend too much time on the other things and people that only subtract. Simplify your life and your surroundings, and you’ll be able to focus only on what matters.
16. Work will take up most of your life
There will probably be nothing in your life you spend more time on than work, so you need to make sure you’re doing something meaningful to you. There has to be more than money in the work you do; it has to be meaningful work. Otherwise, the job you were once grateful to have because it let you keep up your lifestyle will end up becoming one of your least wanted daily routines.
17. Most people don’t care about you
Most people will ask how you are and how things are going, and not because they really care about your well-being. They’ll do it because they’re curious or bored. That’s why you can’t let other people’s opinions interfere with your decisions.
Some people who call themselves your friends will come into your life, and they probably won’t want things to go badly for you, but they won’t want them to go better for you than for them either. Reaching your goals and objectives in life will spark envy and criticism in the circles you least expected.
That’s why, when you find people who have shown that they stand by you unconditionally in the best and worst moments of life, hold on tight to them and don’t let them go.
Finally
Life is the sum of the moments you’ve lived. If one day you can say that you’ve laughed, cried, shouted, danced, fallen, fallen in love, been rejected, persevered despite the difficulties, succeeded or failed and not given up, congratulations: you have lived.
Featured image: Ruthann Hurwitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
